


M7-97: Endurance

by entity1000909



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, Fallout 4 Spoilers, I don't reccomend reading this if you haven't finished the brotherhood questline, attempted drowning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 00:25:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17213666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entity1000909/pseuds/entity1000909
Summary: A synth was a formidable enemy, but a Courser was a cut above them all due to their harsh and unforgiving 'training'.





	M7-97: Endurance

**Author's Note:**

> Saved from one of my old blogs (advxctorium). It has not been edited or beta'd, and if you find any errors please let me know. I want to preserve the original piece but not the mistakes.

M7-97 kept his gaze steadily focused on the white wall before him as he ran. He could feel the electrodes taped to his bare chest tug at his skin with each movement. Today they had been modifying the resistance of the machine, and though it had only been four hours he could already feel the strain it had taken on his calves, a small pain in comparison to the burn that had long since settled onto his lungs. It was irrelevant. Inhale, 1 …2 … 3 … Exhale, 1 … 2… 3 … It was a monotonous test, but one he would seldom have to repeat if he passed the Final Training. A courser had to be EXCEPTIONAL. Anything less was failure. 

“ —And, STOP. Time.” 

Obediently, he let the track stop, and an assistant quickly came to unstrap his feet from the contraption. He looked around the room. Two more were on similar running machines, and another was being tested for strength. The technician glanced at the weight reading before writing it down, and adjusting the dial. He watched the way his knees shook under the weight, before finally being unable to take it, and collapsing under the pressure. The weight rod spun back into the reel, the synth’s chest heaved. 

BANG.  
The sound rang in his ears for a few seconds. He couldn’t even hear the body crumpling to the ground. A gen two ran to quickly drag it from the room. It was his third failure, he had received what was coming to him. Still, M7 felt a strange pain in his chest watching his former peer’s head loll towards him, eyes open in muted terror. 

“M7-97, hydrate and prepare yourself for the Endurance Final.” 

“The Endurance Final?” 

If her hair wasn’t so nearly pinned into a bun, he was sure he would have seen it flying away from her as she spun to face him, her eyes open in pale surprise. 

“Any questions or complains you may have can be discussed with your handler.”

And with that, she spun on her heel and walked away. 

M7-97 was no stranger to discomfort, but the endurance test was something every synth shied away from. As with other tests, you either passed, or you died. With the others, he was in control of his environment. He could strategize, plan a method of achieving the goal: getting out alive. Survival was easier, it was how much fight you had left in you. Endurance was how long your body could last.

Those who made it, didn’t talk about it and those who didn’t, didn’t say anything at all. He was walking in blind, and he didn’t like it one bit. 

The finals required a full courser uniform. The leather creaked when he wore it, still new. Eventually it would be noiseless, and come with the standard ware and tear his superiors had. Regardless, being in it made him feel calmer about the test. He flexed his finger experimentally in the black gloves. He could imagine carrying the rifle promised at the end of the tests, patrolling the wasteland. Retrieving wayward peers, or terminating them. 

M7 had received the room number for the test an hour before, and soon after the note deleted itself from his files. But he knew exactly where to go. It was a room deep within the SRB, almost to the final level. It didn’t take him long to arrive. 

B7809, read the yellow paint on the door. He was in the right place, but there wasn’t anyone else there. In fact, he hadn’t seen anyone on the floor since he arrived. Not even a gen 1 patrolling. Then again, he thought, what was the point of patrolling so deep? 

He waited motionlessly in the hall for a good while, until a man in a blue labcoat came out of the testing room. His face was lit up in an encouraging smile. 

“Alrighty M7-97, you’re all set to go. Ready?”

M7 nodded. 

“Good good, just come right on in here and we’ll get started.” 

M7 nodded again, and walked in. 

The room itself was nothing special. There was a desk in the middle, and a chair across from it. A few large mirrors, no doubt also windows, were on three sides of the room. It was clean, spotless, like everything else, and smelled faintly metallic as he entered. 

“Just sit right there and we’ll give you the test in a few minutes.” He clenched his fist at M7, smiling a toothy smile, but it was less predatory and more … Hopeful? M7 found himself almost put out by the man’s enthusiasm. “You can do this!” 

“Affirmative.” 

The technician gave him a small wave and another smile before backing out of the room, and letting the doors slide shut. Nowhere to run. Not that M7 felt a particular need to. He was ready for this, ready for whatever they threw at him. He was stronger, better than his peers, and certainly better than the humans. He pulled out the chair and took a seat. 

He leaned his hands against the desk, and waited. From where he was sitting he could see a mechanical clock ticking away above the doors. 4:00. Right on time. He didn’t expect anything less. 

His eyes stayed focused on the clock. If he listened, really listened, filtered out the ever-present humming and the sounds of the lights, he could hear the inner workings of the clock. The spinning of the motor, the click of the gear hitting it’s next notch. A focus exercise he had learned early in his perception training. FOCUSED SENSORY DETECTION, or in layman terms, selective hearing. 

It was what he had spent the majority of his time sharping. Institute weaponry required careful attention to surroundings, mechanics, and a keen sense of what to aim for. Shiny surfaces often excluded, as the ricochet had been the end of many less intelligent gen 1′s. M7 was made to be a instrument of precision, and precision required caution. 

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick … . 

By the time the clock read 5:15, he began to feel the tension taking it’s toll. Like the clock, he could feel his own coils beginning to tighten, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Steady … There was no reason to be nervous. He would pass, or he would die, and if he died it would be good for the institute. They would not waste anymore resources on a synth who was unprepared. 

A soft shushing sound rose from the ground, coming from inside. He stood instantly. 

WATER was flowing in from beneath a small gap between the floor and the walls, and coming to a pool at his feet. His heart raced faster, it was accompanied by another wave of the metallic smell. It had only been purified for material, it had not yet been purified for radiation. But he wasn’t worried about the rads. He was effectively immune to those. It was the liquid he was more worried about, and it had already began to lap at his ankles. 

Aquaphobia was the most common affliction with synths, a fear breed into machines since the first synth had opened their eyes, and with good reason. From electrocution to actuator failure, to cooling system clogs, the dangers of water was well known. Even if he was more human than the gen 1′s and 2′s. But it was a fear that had never been entirely ironed out of synths. 

Flesh or not, he was still a robot, and robots did not do well with water. 

He took a few deep breaths and tried to reason with himself. He WASN’T a gen 1. He didn’t have any of those parts. He only needed to keep breathing, and he would be fine. There was no enemy to fight but his own fear. 

The water didn’t stop flowing even after it had risen well above his kneecaps. He glanced at it again, and swallowed his rising panic. ENDURE. 

That was the test, wasn’t it? To last? ENDURE. He turned around slowly, looking at the mirrors. With the water flowing, and his own heartbeat nearly making him deaf, he couldn’t hear past the windows, see how many people had come to watch to see how long it would take for the synth to drown. The water had come up to his waist by then, and forced his coat to float around him on the surface.

ENDURE. Another deep breath. While I have air, he thought. 

His eyes flitted back to the clock again. 5:40. Based on the rate the water was flowing, he had ten minutes to saturate his blood with oxygen, the more he had the longer he would last. Deep steady breaths. ENDURE. His head started to spin a little, but he keep going. 10 minutes. ENDURE. The water pushed against the bottom of his rib cage.

5:45. He let his body naturally come to a float on his back, it would be a little easier to breathe that way and that was his main priority. Not the most tactical position, but this wasn’t about tactics. The water was not his enemy. This was about endurance. Over oxygenate. Breathe. ENDURE. Soon the windows were mostly underwater. He watched the top of them disappear. 

The thought struck him light lightning. 

I don’t want to die. 

The ceiling was mere inches away from his face, and had begun to touch the bottom of the clock. 5:48. He didn’t have much time. He could feel it, hear it, above the panic, above the fear, the need to survive, the need to come out of this. It was a battle cry in tandem with his quickening pulse. He had to live, he had to live, he had to live, he had to do more than ENDURE, he had to LIVE. He took a few more gasping breaths, and dove back under. The water blurred his vision, and the rads burned his eyes, but they quickly refocused. The water flowed in relentlessly. 

The windows were an option, but they would be reinforced, enough to equalize the pressure of all the water, and, he would never gain enough speed underwater to shatter them. There was too much resistance. 

The door was his best option. He swam to it in a few strokes. It was electromagnetically reinforced, but he had defeated them before, however time was of the essence. Tiny bubbles escaped his lips and brushed past his face. The door was sealed tight, he strained to get his fingers between them. 

ENDURE. 

He could feel his breath waning, he would be able to make it a little longer if he stopped struggling, if he simply tried to endure, but he couldn’t SURRENDER to this. He would not die, not here. The last of his air bubbled out, he had to get out, he had to get out, he had to get out. 

Survive.  
With a final push, his fingers latched onto the edges and pulled the door open. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. Water began to pour out, faster than it was coming in, and pressed his body against the doors. There was nothing he could do anymore, just stare outwards and fight the urge to take a breath, until the water was too much and forced the crack to open wider. 

He tumbled out with a wet slap against the floor, pushing the water out of his lungs with heavy coughs. It continued to flow, until it slowed to a trickle. He stayed still on the ground, taking greedy breaths of air. 

“Congratulations M7-97! You have officially passed the endurance test!” A few tiny claps. “Yay!” 

M7 didn’t have to look up to know it was the same man, he only let his head drop against the cold floor.

He made it. 

He had made it through the first test, but it was one of many.


End file.
